Let me begin this article by stating that it is never nice to hear about people losing their lives on our roads, but I do feel that many deaths are entirely preventable.
‘Our daughters got on a school bus and never came home’
The grief that follows the loss of a child means that Bob Hogg and Stella McGinn’s families have more in common than either would have ever wished for.
Stella’s daughter, Caitlin-Rose, and Bob’s daughter Caitlin, whose middle name is Rose, both set off for school and never came home.
While the girls lost their lives two years apart, in different parts of the country, the circumstances are tragically similar.
Both died after being hit by a car when getting off a school bus.
There is no legal requirement anywhere in the UK for other vehicles to stop when a school bus is picking up or dropping off.
On Thursday, Stormont’s infrastructure minister launched a consultation to get the public’s views on proposed law changes designed to improve the safety of children travelling to and from school by bus.
Liz Kimmins’ proposals include making it illegal to overtake a bus when it is stationary.
Last year, Mid Ulster Council passed a motion calling for law changes around bus safety.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c995yyr1xnno
Of course, this BBC article doesn’t go into details of what happened apart from “hit by a car after getting off a school bus”. But based on my own observations and experiences as a regular bus user myself, I can easily work out what has happened.
Bus stops are on pavements at the side of the road. When you step off from a bus, you step onto the pavement. Cars do not drive along pavements, it is almost impossible to be hit by a car almost immediately after stepping off a bus.
On Thursday the Department for Infrastructure set out its preferred options around law changes to improve bus safety.
This includes making it illegal to overtake a stationary bus “in clearly defined dangerous circumstances”.
Police data shows that since 2020 almost 700 young people aged between four and 18 years old have been killed or seriously injured on Northern Ireland’s roads during school term time.
Liz Kimmins said recent tragic incidents involving children had highlighted the risks that can arise when passengers are getting on or off buses.
This story might be from Northern Ireland, but it’s the same story across the whole of the UK. Buses themselves are perfectly safe of course.
After getting off any bus, the absolutely worst thing you can try and do, is to cross the road by going in front of that bus.
I see this so many times myself, and I am almost relieved that I’ve not personally witnessed any major accidents or fatalities as a result, though I’m positive I’ve seen a fair number of ‘near-misses’.
There will always be impatient motorists “in a hurry” that see buses at bus stops as some kind of ‘major inconvenience’ to them.
As a pedestrian, you should not step out into the road until it is clearly safe to do so. And that involves being able to clearly see traffic that is moving in both directions. If you’ve just stepped off a bus that is now stationary, you can’t see what the traffic behind it is doing, especially if you walk into the road in front of the bus.
Stella McGinn said she would be “angry” if improved bus safety laws were not passed within this assembly mandate.
She said: “To be honest I had expected it to already be done, so for me, it has to be done before the next election it’s as simple as that, there’s not another option.
“Because I honestly believe more children will die if these law changes aren’t put in place, so I will continue to fight until its done.”
In my opinion, we don’t need any new laws to keep school children ‘safe’, we just need parents and schools to better educate their children on how to safely cross roads.
As a child of the 70s myself, maybe it is time we brought back the ‘Green Cross Code’ man!
While I accept that there are an increasing number of dangerous lunatics driving on our roads, I do believe that there would be fewer accidents and fatalities, if pedestrians took more responsibility for their own actions, and knew how to cross roads safely.
